Jesus

  I think I am finally starting to “get” the Biblical verses that talk about co-laboring with the people of God for their joy in Christ:

Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy; for in your faith you are standing firm. — 2 Cor 1:24
Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. — Phil 1:25

  I truly do want YOU, brothers and sisters, to experience much greater joy in Christ. Indeed I want to LABOR for your joy in Christ. One reason I long for your joy is because I want much greater joy in Christ for myself, and my joy is inseparable from your joy:

And you too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. — Phil 2:18
That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. — Rom 1:12

  One practical way I intend, Lord willing, to serve your and my joy in Christ is by prayerfully laboring to provide a bigger picture of the glory of Christ revealed in Scripture, especially the Old Testament. My current employer has agreed to let me shift down to 4 days a week (32 hours) starting in October 2008. That leaves 2 work-days per week to devote to writing projects.
  The joy that I want for you and for me is not just any arbitrary, so-called “joy” attached to any particular object or experience. Rather, the joy I am talking about is specifically joy in Christ:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! — Phil 4:4

Therefore my plan at this point is to focus my effort on the topic of Jesus in the Old Testament. My blog devoted to this topic — http://onelord.cn/Jesus/ — is still in its infancy. But I hope, Lord willing, to fill that out more and more, and at some point see if any book publishers would be interested in it (IF doing so would promise to reach more people than, say, freely disseminating and advertising the material over the internet).
  And it is labor. My fight for my joy and my fight for your joy is a lot of hard, prayerful work. For one thing, the old man in us is actually resistent to that which brings true joy, and the Devil loves to replace deep abiding joy in Christ with shallow counterfeits at every turn. I believe that the number one key to more joy in Jesus is MORE JESUS. As our vision of Jesus becomes bigger and bigger, the allure of personal comfort, national safety, a middle-class standard of living, political “freedoms”, empty forms of recreation, TV, suburbia, job security, and economic stability become less and less. [Note: I’m not implying that all of the things in the above list are necessarily bad. But joy that rests on any of those things is definitely nothing compared to the joy of knowing JESUS more and more and more intimately and walking with Him and sharing His heart more and more and more closely. And yes, things that could otherwise be neutral or even good certainly do turn rotten when they get in the way of getting more of JESUS.]

  If you would, please pray for this work. Please pray for my family — thanks to my sweetie pie Angie for her crucial support of this. And pray along with the Lord Jesus Himself that all of us His people would have the full measure of His joy within us (John 17:13).